The departments accepted passively the results of the insurrection of August 10. Men feared lest by offering opposition they might render easier the advance of the allies. Lafayette, while he prepared to defend the road to Paris, refused to recognise the validity of what had been done. The Assembly declared him a traitor, his soldiers abandoned him, and, in company with three other members of the late constituent Assembly, he fled across the frontier, where all four were arrested and imprisoned by the Austrians. The Assembly itself had lost all control over the course of events. The men who had refused to take the right step of deposing Louis had now to pay the penalty. That which might have been effected without shock by the constituent or legislative Assembly had been done by a violent explosion of popular wrath. The Assembly had failed to take the lead, and after its flagrant subjection to mob dictation, it was without moral energy or force. Yet a mob, however powerful to destroy, is powerless to reconstruct. The one organised force in Paris which could translate the feelings of the populace into action was that of the sixty or seventy commissioners who had dispersed the legal Municipal Council on the night before the insurrection. A few days afterwards they raised their number by fresh elections to 288. From henceforth this irregularly-elected body is known to history as the Commune of Paris. With this new Commune supreme power for the moment practically resided. It was strong because it knew its own mind, and because it fully accepted the work of those of its members who had swept away a king suspected of being in alliance with a foreign enemy. Among the newly-chosen members was Robespierre, the only one who had hitherto been of note. Other names, such as those of Billaud-Varennes, Collot d’Herbois, Hébert and Chaumette now rose first into prominence. Of the mass many were unprincipled adventurers, others timid timeservers. ♦The insurrectionary Commune.♦ To a few the holding of municipal office was merely a step in their career upwards. The better men resigned office or kept out of sight, the more ruffianly and unscrupulous came to the front. The ministers were thwarted and disobeyed, the Assembly threatened, public property plundered, numbers of arrests made, liberty of speech suppressed. Constitutionalists for the most part kept away from the Assembly, and laws were passed which before the insurrection had been rejected by large majorities. Nonjurors were required to leave the country within fifteen days on pain of ten years’ imprisonment; and unbeneficed ecclesiastics, on whom the oath had never been imposed, were subjected to the same fate whenever six citizens of their department joined in demanding their exile. Emigrants’ property was confiscated and offered for sale. Administrative bodies and municipalities were authorised to issue warrants of arrest against persons suspected of political crime. This law, which may be likened to a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in England, destroyed at a blow the safeguards against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment which the constituent Assembly had toiled to build up.
Yet, in spite of the terror that reigned, the position of the Commune was insecure. In the departments it had no supporters. In Paris it could only reckon on some hundreds of arms and votes. The artisans of St. Antoine had taken part in the insurrection to destroy the throne, not with the intention of placing power in the hands of the present holders of office, most of whom were men entirely unknown to fame. The Assembly resented their ascendancy, and there was no doubt that one of the first acts of the Convention would be to attempt to establish its own authority over the Commune.
The September massacres.
With the object of obtaining political supremacy an atrocious scheme was devised, in the execution of which the advance of the enemy assisted. The allies, marching from Coblentz, arrived before Longwy on August 20. The place surrendered in four days. Verdun was next besieged. Dumouriez, who commanded in Lafayette’s place, was at Sedan with 20,000 men; Kellermann with another 20,000 at Metz. Unless these forces should unite before Verdun surrendered, the way to Paris would be open to the enemy. Strenuous exertions were being made by all authorities to send men to the frontier, and Danton devoted to the task unflagging vigour and energy. He dominated in the ministry over his Girondist colleagues, and by his stirring appeals excited the passion and enthusiasm of whatever audience he addressed. ‘The bells that ring,’ he cried, as recruits hastened to the Champs de Mars, ‘are no signal of alarm. They sound the charge upon our country’s enemies. To conquer them we need audacity, and again audacity, and ever audacity, and France is saved.’ On his proposition the Assembly decreed that commissioners should go from house to house and make an inventory of arms, horses and carts. Of this decree the Commune took advantage for its own purposes. For two days and nights the barriers were closed, and many hundred persons arrested, principally nobles and constitutionalists. Twenty-four hours later, while the church bells were ringing and Danton exciting citizens to enlist, bands of assassins, hired by the Commune, visited the prisons and massacred their inmates. The work was carried out under the special direction of a committee composed of the municipal officers at the head of the police, to whom Marat and a few other persons, who, like himself, were not members of the Commune, joined themselves. Besides political prisoners, a number of ordinary criminals perished, including women and boys, though in most cases the women were spared. At two of the chief prisons, the Abbey and La Force, some show of judicial forms was observed. At the Abbey a dozen individuals appointed themselves judges with a president at their head. Each prisoner was called in turn before them. He was asked one or two questions, and without further discussion, either acquitted or ordered to be taken to the other prison, La Force, a formula which meant death. As the condemned passed through the prison gates, executioners stationed without rained blows upon his back and head. The street became strewn with corpses and ran with blood.
Similar scenes were enacted at La Force, where Hébert acted as president of the tribunal. The massacres effected in eight prisons went on continuously for five days and nights (September 2–7), during which it is calculated that more than a thousand prisoners were butchered. No action was taken to interfere with the murderers. Ministers and deputies were afraid even to denounce the Commune in vigorous language lest the weapons of the assassins should be turned against themselves. They had no material force on which to rely. Santerre, who commanded the national guard, obeyed the Commune. The inhabitants of Paris remained perfectly passive, the violence of party strife having destroyed enthusiasm for political ideals, and the sense of common duty. In the midst of the butchery the news came that Verdun had fallen, and the uncertainty of their own fate deadened men’s sympathy for the fate of those charged justly or unjustly with being in connivance with the enemy. So far as Paris was concerned the contrivers of the massacres succeeded in their object. The elections to the Convention were held while terror reigned over the city, and twenty-four men, some of whom were partners in the crime, and none of whom were prepared to denounce it, were returned for Paris. An attempt was made to influence, by like means, the elections in the departments. A circular, signed by Marat and his colleagues, was sent out inviting the country to follow the example of the capital and to murder traitors. This incitation to massacre, was, however, attended with small success. In a few towns murders were committed at the instigation of agents of the Commune; but generally the elections were conducted without disturbance.
The Campaign of 1792.
When Verdun surrendered Dumouriez was still at Sedan, and Kellermann at Metz. Between the allies and the plain of Champagne was only a natural barrier, the forest of Argonnes, a range of wooded hills. Fortunately for France the allies were dilatory in all their movements. The campaign, instead of being commenced in the spring, had been delayed till autumn, when the season was less favourable and France better prepared to resist. The Duke of Brunswick was a cautious commander, who had acquired his military reputation in the Seven Years’ War. With 80,000 men he did not believe it possible to maintain his communications and occupy Paris in safety. His proposal, therefore, had been to capture the fortresses on the Meuse, and to reserve operations against the capital for the ensuing spring. But the King of Prussia, who in person took part in the war, was eager to push on to Paris and to release the royal family. After the fall of Verdun the Duke assented, but advanced slowly and reluctantly. Meanwhile Dumouriez by rapid marches got before him to the forest, and occupied the passes leading through it. Driven from his positions as Brunswick advanced, he rallied his men in the plain and made a stand near St. Menehould, where he was joined by Kellermann. Recruits were incessantly pouring in, so that the united French forces numbered 60,000 men. The allies on their descent into the plain took up a position between the French army and Paris. The weather was very wet, the roads nearly impassable, and the invading army with difficulty supplied with bread. The placing of garrisons in Longwy and Verdun, together with sickness, had reduced the effective force under Brunswick’s command to 40,000 men, and he could not push on to Paris leaving Dumouriez’ army unbeaten behind him. The King was eager to fight, but Brunswick persuaded him, in place of attempting to storm the French positions, merely to open a cannonade on Kellermann’s forces, which were stationed in advance of Dumouriez’ men on some heights near the village of Valmy (September 20). This cannonade was the turning point of the campaign. The young French recruits stood fire so well that the allies determined on retreat. The Austrian troops were afterwards called off for the defence of Belgium, and thus Brunswick’s plan of holding the line of the Meuse was rendered impracticable. Verdun and Longwy were evacuated, and the Prussians retreated to Coblentz (October).
The Convention.
The Legislative Assembly gave place to the Convention on September 21, the day after the cannonade of Valmy. At once, the abolition of monarchy was decreed, and the following day was henceforth accounted as the first of the French Republic. The new Assembly consisted of 749 members, of whom 186 had belonged to the legislative, 77 to the constituent Assembly, and 486 were new men. The constitutionalists, through intimidation or want of public spirit, had kept away from the poll, and among all the deputies were none who did not vote for the abolition of monarchy with real or feigned enthusiasm. The Girondists now sat on the right, forming the conservative side of the House. Vergniaud, Brissot, Gensonné, and Guadet were all re-elected, and around them gathered a knot of new comers, amongst whom were Buzot, Pétion, Barbaroux, Louvet, and others who shared their views. The deputation of Paris, together with about thirty deputies from the departments, now formed the Mountain, sitting as in the last Assembly on the topmost benches of the left. Here were Marat and other directors of the massacres, several municipal officers, including Robespierre, Billaud-Varennes, and Collot d’Herbois, the Duke of Orleans, who to flatter the mob now called himself Philip Egalité, Desmoulins, and Danton, who resigned the post of minister of justice in order to retain his seat in the Assembly.
The Girondists and the Mountain.